Skipping Church

Ah. Some space in my life. Everyone has left for church without me. There are so many reasons to skip church this morning. I've got some tea and some Dave Johnson ready to stream online.

We've chosen a church and we've chosen how we'd like to be involved. With such a small church (around 30 adults per Sunday), you don't really get to have a period of time where you just sit around and soak things in. But I really don't want to dive in yet. It surprises me that I feel this way. I'm such an extrovert, but I'm not really ready to embrace new people and new tasks just yet. It's just a part of the process of moving.

There are little things that I'm feeling better about. Like my car. I liked it from the start, but I'm moving into the phase where it doesn't feel like a new car anymore. I can even pull out of the driveway headed in the direction that corresponds to the place where I want to go without thinking about it. Most of the time.

I love Toby's school. It is actually much more diverse than I noticed on first glance. There are at least three children in Toby's class that are already bilingual (Portuguese, Mandarin, Punjabi). I will definitely be friends with the Brazilian mom.

Our budget has been a big change and source of stress for me. We've got about 40% less income than we had in the States AND EVERYTHING is more expensive. Now that we've been here for two and a half months, we've been able to figure what we can and can't afford, and I've made lots of progress in figuring out where I can buy what. Yesterday, I actually bought a raincoat for Alicia at Walmart. AH! I am NOT a Walmart shopper, but I could only find a raincoat at one other store and it was $10 more. These days, I need that $10, so Walmart it was. I'll still keeping trying to avoid it, though.

Just why is everything more expensive in Canada? I can think of a bunch of reasons. Tax. Is it 12% on everything? Gas. ($4.02 per gallon US Dollar) That makes it more expensive to truck things from here to there. Borders. Lots of goods have to cross the border from the States. Shear numbers. Canada has 10% of the population of the US. I'm sure that companies abroad sell their goods to the US for cheaper prices than to other countries. It's really not that things are so expensive here. It's really that life is so cheap in the US. Spoiled brats.

I do miss living in Minnesota for lots of reasons. And it really goes beyond there being any reasons. There's a deep part of my gut that is Minnesota and the US. I absolutely chose to move here, and I would do it again. But until the rest of my being catches up with me, I might be skipping church from time to time.